William Kent to Woodrow Wilson

I do not know how I came to mistake the hour of seeing you on Wednesday, but it got in my head that it was 3.30, and as I wrote you, I was preparing to get there ahead of time. I have never felt more humiliated than when I found I had not only wasted your time but failed to see you. Not having heard a reply to the note I left at the White House office, I shall carry out my plan of starting West at 1.48 today. As suggested in that letter, I am greatly anxious that you should give Miss Todd another chance to be heard. She is in position to be of great service, but, in common with others, must have a definite text.

I was greatly disturbed by the statement made by a member of your Cabinet which appeared in the noon edition of the Washington Times. I know who made the statement, because he had used the same language and the same argument to me prior to its appearance in the paper. I am hoping it will do no harm, because I doubt whether people will believe that the person talking this way occupied the position that he does. I am much discouraged by finding such a general desire to "get even" with Germany. If the disposition of getting even is carried out to its logical conclusion, how far back shall we date the beginning of the grievances which must be evened up, and what earthly chance is there for termination of the war short of extinction? Your "peace without victory" talk was after all the keynote. We cannot exterminate the Germans, but if we can pull the teeth and trim the claws of the Junker crowd by terms insisted on as preliminary to negotiations, this troubled world may get a rest before the extermination process goes much further, and I, for my part, cannot believe but that the German people can be made to realize two things: First, that they cannot carry out their object of conquest; and second, that the rest of the world does not demand their destruction, either as individuals or as a nation.

I believe it would be a terrible mistake if the Pope's request is ignored by the United States, even if it is turned down by the rest of the Allies. It seems to me that with any Teutonic encouragement of his program, the end of the string is placed in Allied hands, and connection should not be cut off peremptorily, but every encouragement given to following it up while elaborating on the requirements that would go to make the world safe from a recurrence of Junker action.

I do not wish my boys killed, or anyone else's boys killed, because England desires to keep Germany's African colonies.

The Alsace-Lorraine row long ante-dates 1871, and American blood should not be shed for that purpose, and so with other long-time grudges.

I am terribly afraid lest, in certain quarters, there may grow up an ambition to try out our army, and to force the sacrifice of American lives simply because we have been training men for a necessary emergency. I should not speak thus excepting for the ideas that are given me by many different people, in whom I should not have expectee an inherently pugnacious and war-like tone, and what I regard as the impossible demands of others. You have declared, and all of us have believed, that our fight is not with the German people, and we cannot logically believe that reprisals will fall with those whose leadership has led Germany astray.

I fully appreciate the tremendous difficulties that will come from our refusal to coincide in the ambitions of the Allies, but it is of the greatest importance to set up a standard to which our own American people will rally. It is important, but of much less importance, to take a seemingly easy road of coinciding with the ambitions of the Allies. The same argument holds as holds in the "Signaling" system of Whist. All authorities agree that the best thing is, for partners to understand each others' hands, even if the opponents are thereby notified. This country would be solid for the war if great definite ideals were reiterated, coupled with a definite statement of peace without victory in the sense of the destruction of the German nation or the German people.

Mr. Hohler, of the British Embassy, told me that England proposed to smash Germany, and gave as his reason, "that otherwise England would be untrue to its dead." Germany might well say the same thing. I only mention this as showing the impasse that is being created. If Germany were small or weak, Germany might be smashed, but I am convinced that this result will never be achieved, and it would be much better for the world if, through encouraging the hope of peace and reassuring the German people that they would not be smashed, that they, in their weariness, in their disappointed hopes, should see the futility of it and be assured that the United States, at least, is not plotting or desiring their destruction, but only assurance against a recurrence of the mania of conquest.

Pardon this statement, which I believe expresses the views that you hold. You have complimented me by expressing some confidence in my judgment. My only reason for making this statement is that I believe in my acquaintance and correspondence, which has been purely American, I have been able to accumulate what I believe to be the views of a vast number of every-day people, and of many exceptional ones.

My letter sent you prior to the missed engagement expressed the hope that you could meet Miss Todd, who is extremely anxious to get to work, but who is at a loss for a sufficiently definite text. She is a woman of remarkable ability and great influence, and is heart and soul in the cause of having the Administration's views of the situation understood by the American people in the Ghettos, out and up. I urgently request that she be given an early opportunity to be heard. It is my intention to be gone for a month, unless you may desire my earlier return. I can be reached through this office, and shall give Miss Todd's address to your secretary.

Yours truly,
William Kent

WK.JPJ

This letter is written in haste but the thought is not one of hasty conclusions. WK